Dr. Marcy Adelman, co-founder and board member of openhouse speaks on the occasion of her 2009 Purpose Prize Award for her work to bring housing, community and services to LGBT older adults in the place they’ve always called home.
The Purpose Prize honors social entrepreneurs over 60 who are using their experience and passion to take on society’s biggest challenges. Dr. Adelman will receive $50,000 for her work to provide housing, services and community programs for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors, which she said she is donating to openhouse.
Purpose Prize winners use their experience and passion to take on society’s biggest challenges. This year’s winners include a former telecom executive who helped wire an Appalachian county; a professor who invented a way to transform toxic fly ash into green bricks; and a couple who bring mental health services to countries ravaged by war and terrorism.
Throughout her career as a psychologist, Dr. Adelman became acutely aware that LGBT seniors were not getting the care and support they needed because of discrimination, lack of relationship recognition and estrangement from family members who are typically the primary caregivers of seniors as they age. Not content to sit on the sidelines, she co-founded openhouse to build LGBT-friendly housing; train and educate service providers; and create community networks to better support LGBT older adults.
“Marcy is being recognized for her visionary leadership in changing the ways in which individuals, organizations and political leaders see and value the contributions of LGBT older adults,” said openhouse Executive Director Seth Kilbourn. “As the founder of openhouse and in her ongoing role as advisor and board member, Marcy is an inspiring example of what can happen when a person puts their passion, creativity, determination and experience to a higher purpose.”
“I am deeply honored to receive this award and to be included in such an inspiring group of people,” said Dr. Adelman. “My late partner, Jeanette Gurevitch, and I founded openhouse in 1998 because LGBT seniors were underserved and invisible in senior housing, services and programs. We founded openhouse to make the senior health care system more responsive to the needs of LGBT seniors. I am proud of openhouse’s gifted staff, dedicated board members and so many others who have helped make that vision a reality.”
The Encore Careers campaign is run by Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose. Funding for The Purpose Prize comes from The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation. Now in its fourth year, the six-year, $17 million program is the nation’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life.
“More than ever, the problems facing our communities, country and world call out for creative solutions,” said Marc Freedman, co-founder of The Purpose Prize and author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life. “Fortunately, we don’t run out of ideas as we age.”
Sherry Lansing, CEO of the Sherry Lansing Foundation and former chair of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, chairs the jury that selected this year’s winners. The 24 judges are leaders in business, politics, journalism and the nonprofit sector – including actor Sidney Poitier, social entrepreneur Thomas Tierney, former Senator Harris Wofford and journalist Cokie Roberts.
Career summaries, videos and photographs of Dr. Adelman and all the Purpose Prize winners are online at www.encore.org.
